How to Find Official Autopsy Reports
- 1). Find the county where the death took place. Autopsy reports are maintained in the coroner's or medical examiner's office for the county where the death occurred, which might not be where the incident that led to the death happened. To find the county, contact relatives of the deceased or research online obituaries.
- 2). Contact the county coroner or medical examiner's office. The easiest way to contact a county coroner's office is to call directory assistance (411) and request a main phone number for the office; if there is no listing, ask for the county sheriff's office, which handles fulfill coroner office responsibilities in some jurisdictions. Call the office, and ask how to obtain an autopsy report.
- 3). Check the county coroner website. Many county coroner offices have websites with instructions for ordering an autopsy report. Typically, you fill out a form, then mail it and a fee to a specified address. Contact your state coroner association, and request the website address for a specific county coroner's office.
- 4). Obtain private autopsy reports. Sometimes there's information in the media, or from the family, that they have retained a private autopsy. This autopsy report is a medical record and therefore not public information. Ask members of the decedent's family for this report, or ask if they will sign a medical information release, which you then submit to the medical examiner or other official who performed the autopsy.
- 5). Obtain a medical information release. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that standardizes the release of confidential medical information through HIPAA-compliant releases. To obtain a HIPAA-compliant release, contact an attorney, who will help you complete and submit the form. Expect to pay the attorney for this service.
- 6). Hire a private investigator. If you're having difficulty pinpointing the county where the death occurred, or if you feel uncomfortable pursuing an autopsy report, you can hire a private investigator to locate and retrieve it. To find a qualified private investigator, contact your state professional private investigator association.
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